Part of the council's new draft cycling strategy, which councillors voted to put on public exhibition on Monday night, includes a plan to classify the CBD as a "cycling district".

To achieve this aim would include "prioritising the design and delivery of key connections to and through the Wollongong CBD".

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Council wants to encourage more cyclists into the city centre from the north, south, east and west approaches, noting that riders are already legally allowed to ride on all streets

This would involve a trial of formal bike lanes in Wollongong along Kembla Street and Smith Street cycling routes, as well as treatments to slow traffic and introduce shared paths.

The results of these trials would lead to council investigating further separated cycling routes in and around the CBD.

Illawarra Bike Users Group chair Werner Steyer said work definitely needed to be done to increase safety around the CBD so cycling in the city became more appealing.

"At the moment it's reasonably hopeless," Mr Steyer said.

"If you try and go east-west, it's extremely difficult. There's very little space and the intersections aren't well laid out.

"We have a beautiful city but it's totally under-utilised from a cycling perspective because there's no east-west infrastructure."

He said the most-needed improvement was a connection between Wollongong train station and the cycling path along the coast.

"Just south of Burelli St is the only real route," he said.

"Burelli Street is hopeless because there's not a lot of space, unless they made Burelli one-way.

"One of the suggestions we put forward, if they're really serious is you make Burelli Street one-way and you make Stewart Street one-way the opposite way - then you generate the space to allow bicycles to come through."

Council views improvements to cycling infrastructure within the CBD as a way of helping residents who live in or near the city centre to make short trips of two to five kilometres.

This would reduce the need to drive into the CBD and add to road congestion and demands on parking.

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